


A Careful Watcher

by Flamyoi



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Anger, Angst, Dealing With Loss, Depression, Explanations, Frustration, M/M, Nightmares, Sirius Black as Padfoot, Sirius trying to help, lack of strength, magical and physical, secret
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-08
Updated: 2018-01-08
Packaged: 2019-03-02 07:20:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13313208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flamyoi/pseuds/Flamyoi
Summary: Written for the prompt : You are a loser who has been living alone with a dog/cat for a while. One day, your animal cannot take it anymore and starts to speak. What does it say?





	A Careful Watcher

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone!
> 
> This time I post a little something written for NaNoWrimo last November.
> 
> Hope you enjoy it.

I just could not take it anymore. It had been months since I began to live with him. And with each passing day, it became harder to think about revealing the secret. I knew it would not go smoothly. Seriously, how could I tell my best mate from high school that his own best mate - that is, me - who was supposed to be dead for months was in fact very much alive although very weak? Yeah, you have probably come to the same conclusion as I have. That is nearly impossible except if you want your best mate to yell at you and maybe stab you with a butter knife or a wand, whatever deadly weapon closer to them. And I was glad to be alive despite everything so I was trying my best to be careful, for once. He would be proud - or not.

  
If you read the first part correctly, you are probably wondering how he could not witness that I was alive while I was living with him. Well, there is a perfectly reasonable answer to that question. He knew that I was living with him, but he did not know that it was me; me who was dead months ago. Do you get it? Maybe not, let me try it another way.  
The facts were these. When I had found him weeks after my supposed death, he did not see me as the sexy and mysterious man I was when we first met in high school, he saw me as a black mangy dog. Because I was now a black mangy dog. Not so sexy, isn't it? Who am I kidding? For once my physical appearance did not matter so much to me for I was alive when I was supposed to be buried deep under the ground or lost in the limbo behind the archway which I had been supposed to have passed through.

  
I thought he knew it was me, he had seen me in the dog form so many times during our years in school. But this time I was not able to discard the dog form to show him there was a human being under the mangy fur. I was not physically strong enough to retrieve my human body, the thoughts and dog instinct were already too much to bear at the time. His look was so sad when he understood that I was just an animal, not his best mate, and although he kept me with him, for a few days he would not even look at me.  
That is how I began to live with him as an anonymous dog when he was mourning his best mate. The worse was to hear his muffled cries at night. Sometimes I would peer into his bedroom, but the guilt forbad me to put a single paw inside. I did not get to enter his last private space. I could not invade it. So I would curl up in front of his door and wait for the sun to rise, not that his behaviour changed much.

  
Usually, he spent all his days inside his messy apartment, but at least once a week he left early in the evening and returned late at night. I guess it was for the Order's meetings. He was in mourning and at a loss of something to do, although he would not show it to the other members so not to be pitied. Maybe they pitied Harry too, I honestly do not know how the kid had taken the news since I was not with him every day to witness it.

  
The second week, he began to scratch my head a few times a day and I let him, hoping that the small gesture was helping with his grief, knowing that my dog form was making the things even the more difficult for him.

  
I was tempted to leave more than once, but in the end, I chose to stay where I was. Where would I go? Who would watch him if I left? Not that I was efficient, but at least I was there if he decided to do something stupid.

  
Which lead me to the present situation. Yesterday, he came home more than slightly drunk, when he was supposed to be at an Order's meeting. In all my years of attending the various meetings, I had never seen a single drop of alcohol and it seemed unlikely that it had suddenly begun.

  
The realisation came to my mind quickly. He had voluntarily skipped the meeting to go to a pub and get drunk. I could not believe it. He was always the first to tell us to stay in line, that duty was on the top of the list of the things we were supposed to respect, that there was no point in getting drunk multiple times a week... And now, he was letting everything, all his principles, go to hell.

  
I have to admit that even if I sound angry, I was really more worried than angry. It is just my way of dealing with feelings, I'm not good with these. I don't have so many feelings when I am in my dog form and I especially don't think about them.

  
When he walked through the door, reeking of cheap alcohol which caused my nose to sting, I grabbed a piece of his jacket between my teeth and I dragged him to his bedroom, hopefully close-by. He did not try to fight and let myself drag him as if he was a puppet.

  
I forced him to lay in his bed and draped the cover on his body even if he was still fully clothed. That would be a matter for the next day. I suddenly noticed that I had just entered his bedroom, though I did not feel bad at the moment for it was a case of emergency. He could have tripped in the hallway and fallen if it was not for my intervention.  
I was starting to leave the room when he became to mutter unintelligible words like he had a tendency to do these days. What forbad me to leave though, was to hear my own name coming out of his mouth. He would never say the name usually. Exactly like I did with him, I thought about him without saying his name.

  
But here he was.

  
“Sirius, Sirius... No!”

  
I felt sick and I started to shudder. I was stuck in a dead-end, at a loss of something to do. I could not keep going this way, his state was not improving like it was supposed to do, instead, he was getting worse with each passing day. I could not help him by staying a dog, but was I able to turn back into a human after weeks spend into my dog form?  
I owed him at least a try.

  
I literally spent the night trying. It was like I was trapped into the dog, I did not know anymore how to turn human again. The sun began to rise and I was so exhausted I might pass out if I tried to stand once more.

  
I might have been whining when he got out of his bedroom, his clothes and face all wrinkled up. He took a long look at me. I was sitting on the couch, almost as mangy as I was, so I did not feel guilty to do so.

  
“I shouldn't have brought you here,” he said, looking sadder as ever.

  
It hurt. It really did. I whined louder without helping it. I needed to speak to him, to explain. And I couldn't, I was not strong enough. I could not help my best mate when he was needing me the most.

“You look like him so much...” he whispered. “Even that look in your eyes...”  
It's me, I wanted to say. I've been here all along.

  
He came to sit by my side and began to scratch behind my ears as if suddenly he could not bear the thought to let me go. I keep thinking very hard about my human body, feeling my paws and tail tingling.

  
“Why is it so unfair?” he rhetorically wondered.

  
“Because life is a bitch,” I said, in a deep and raspy voice, starting to cough after the last word had left my mouth.

  
Remus' eyes widened almost comically and I raised my eyebrows – I had eyebrows again! I looked down at my body and discovered that I succeeded in turning myself into a human. Also, I was naked.

“Oh, my. Oh my fucking god.”

  
For once I could not think about some cool thing to reply back, I was just too stunned to talk, and in addition, my throat hurt like hell.

  
Remus stood up speedily and began to stutter. I remembered my own nudity and grabbed a cushion to cover myself.

  
“Of course it looked like you!” he said accusingly. “It was you!”

  
I managed a humble and sorry look and coughed to clear my voice.

  
“I'm sorry.”

  
His look changed from accusation to disbelief.

  
“You're sorry? That's all you have to say?”

  
“Listen, Remus, I...”

  
He cut me in the middle of my sentence.

  
“You're dead months ago!” he all but yelled.

  
“I thought so, too,” I replied, which hopefully caused him to calm down a bit, enough to let me explain. “I honestly swear to you, Remus, I thought the cursed had hit me because everything just faded away and the next time I opened my eyes I was laying on the remains of the room, as a dog, and everyone was gone. And at first I didn't even remember anything, I was just a dog with dog instinct and close to no thinking.”

  
I stopped and passed a hand through my messy hair. Remus was keeping silent, arms crossed on his chest.

  
“My memories started to flow back after some time, and then one day I smelled you in the city and from that moment I could not pretend I was a simple dog anymore. I needed to stay with you, my dog would not let me leave you in peace.”

  
I saw as I spoke Remus' features softening.

  
“Why haven't you changed back when I asked you to, then?”

  
“I was too weak. I tried, I really tried. Until now I thought I was trapped forever into the dog. I didn't know how to turn human anymore. I spend the night trying, since I saw you coming home last night I just... I just couldn't keep going on like this. I needed to do something.”

  
“I thought I had lost my best friend,” he said softly.

  
I felt my eyes tingling.

  
“I can't leave you,” I said in all honesty.

  
He smiled, then. A sad little smile, but a smile nonetheless. He walked toward me as if he wanted to hug me, but then he remembered that I was not wearing any clothes and he stopped.

  
“Why don't you go into my bedroom and put some clothes on? We can talk afterwards.”

  
I nodded and stood up, keeping the cushion in place and feeling very self-aware of Remus' look on my body.

  
I felt my face heating up and I hurried into his bedroom, wondering about these new feelings I was not experiencing as a dog.

**Author's Note:**

> So, what did you guys think? I know I twisted the prompt a little, but I think it's worth it, I quite like the result (my poor heart, the feels...)
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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